3 ms·

> Humans are good at reading columns at around roughly 80 characters What makes you say that? Anecdotally, I prefer using the full width of my screen.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
danielvaughn 4y ago
There is a huge amount of research devoted to this. Of course personal preferences exist, but there are physical constraints like the degree to which your eyes can move without turning your neck and other things. It’s somewhere between 60-120 I think, with 80 right in the sweet spot.
reaperducer 4y ago
It's actually smaller than 80 characters. There has been over a century of research into this. It's why newspapers print their stories in columns, instead of across the entire page, which would be easier.
maweki 4y ago
Newspapers have been using columns to break up long lines for well over a century. It's hard to find to the next line, if they are too long.
- roelschroeven 4y ago
  And it's annoying to have to find the next line every few words if the lines are too short. Newspaper columns have always felt way too short for me. Most books have longer lines, and I much prefer that.
magnio 4y ago
Just look at any physical book. I also wonder how many people would read Wikipedia more if they serve the mobile version on desktop.
kylebyproxy 4y ago
Same, I lose my place every time moving from the bottom of a column to the top of the next.
sdenton4 4y ago
Especially for long blocks of text or becomes easy to go to the wrong line when scanning back to the left side of the page. There exist decades of empirical research on this topic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length
- graftak 4y ago
  I can’t think of a source for this so take it as you wish but at some point in history it was attempted to mitigate this by changing the reading direction every other sentence so you’d be able to read in a continuous stream. It failed for obvious reasons.
  - sdenton4 4y ago
    Ancient-enough greek includes examples of left-to-right, right-to-left, and alternating line orientation, and may be what you're thinking of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon
mort96 4y ago
Here's a literature review on the topic: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234578707_Optimal_Line_Length_in_Reading--A_Literature_Review https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234578707_Optimal_L.... The article content is inaccessible, but from the abstract: > Research has led to recommendations that line length should not exceed about 70 characters per line. The reason behind this finding is that both very short and very long lines slow down reading by interrupting the normal pattern of eye movements and movements throughout the text. And a document on the topic from the US government: https://www.usability.gov/get-involved/blog/2006/08/line-length-and-onscreen-reading.html https://www.usability.gov/get-involved/blog/2006/08/line-len... > The best available research suggests that users will read fastest if the line lengths are longer (up to 10 inches). If the line lengths are too short (e.g., two and a half inch columns), the line length probably will impede rapid reading. Users tend to prefer lines that are relatively short (about four inches). Wikipedia cites a whole bunch of studies on the topic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length): > Legibility research specific to digital text has shown that, like with printed text, line length can affect reading speed. If lines are too long it is difficult for the reader to quickly return to the start of the next line (saccade), whereas if lines are too short more scrolling or paging will be required. [...] One proposal advanced that, in order for on-screen text to have the best compromise between reading speed and comprehension, about 55 cpl should be used.[11] On the other hand, there have been studies indicating that digital text at 100 cpl can be read faster than text with lines of 25 characters, while retaining the same level of comprehension. There's a decent amount of variance, but common across all research in this area is that many hundreds of characters per line is never found to be the optimal length of a text column.
- pronlover723 4y ago
  > (up to 10 inches) here on HN in my 16" MBP, 10 inches is ~230 characters
  - chipotle_coyote 4y ago
    The context from the linked article, which dates to 2006: > Her results showed that passages formatted in the longest line length (95 characters per line or 10 inches) resulted in the fastest reading speed.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

danielvaughn 4y ago

There is a huge amount of research devoted to this. Of course personal preferences exist, but there are physical constraints like the degree to which your eyes can move without turning your neck and other things. It’s somewhere between 60-120 I think, with 80 right in the sweet spot.

reaperducer 4y ago

It's actually smaller than 80 characters. There has been over a century of research into this. It's why newspapers print their stories in columns, instead of across the entire page, which would be easier.

maweki 4y ago

Newspapers have been using columns to break up long lines for well over a century. It's hard to find to the next line, if they are too long.

roelschroeven 4y ago
And it's annoying to have to find the next line every few words if the lines are too short. Newspaper columns have always felt way too short for me. Most books have longer lines, and I much prefer that.

magnio 4y ago

Just look at any physical book. I also wonder how many people would read Wikipedia more if they serve the mobile version on desktop.

kylebyproxy 4y ago

Same, I lose my place every time moving from the bottom of a column to the top of the next.

sdenton4 4y ago

Especially for long blocks of text or becomes easy to go to the wrong line when scanning back to the left side of the page. There exist decades of empirical research on this topic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length

graftak 4y ago
I can’t think of a source for this so take it as you wish but at some point in history it was attempted to mitigate this by changing the reading direction every other sentence so you’d be able to read in a continuous stream. It failed for obvious reasons.
- sdenton4 4y ago
  Ancient-enough greek includes examples of left-to-right, right-to-left, and alternating line orientation, and may be what you're thinking of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon

mort96 4y ago

Here's a literature review on the topic: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234578707_Optimal_Line_Length_in_Reading--A_Literature_Review https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234578707_Optimal_L.... The article content is inaccessible, but from the abstract: > Research has led to recommendations that line length should not exceed about 70 characters per line. The reason behind this finding is that both very short and very long lines slow down reading by interrupting the normal pattern of eye movements and movements throughout the text. And a document on the topic from the US government: https://www.usability.gov/get-involved/blog/2006/08/line-length-and-onscreen-reading.html https://www.usability.gov/get-involved/blog/2006/08/line-len... > The best available research suggests that users will read fastest if the line lengths are longer (up to 10 inches). If the line lengths are too short (e.g., two and a half inch columns), the line length probably will impede rapid reading. Users tend to prefer lines that are relatively short (about four inches). Wikipedia cites a whole bunch of studies on the topic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length): > Legibility research specific to digital text has shown that, like with printed text, line length can affect reading speed. If lines are too long it is difficult for the reader to quickly return to the start of the next line (saccade), whereas if lines are too short more scrolling or paging will be required. [...] One proposal advanced that, in order for on-screen text to have the best compromise between reading speed and comprehension, about 55 cpl should be used.[11] On the other hand, there have been studies indicating that digital text at 100 cpl can be read faster than text with lines of 25 characters, while retaining the same level of comprehension. There's a decent amount of variance, but common across all research in this area is that many hundreds of characters per line is never found to be the optimal length of a text column.

pronlover723 4y ago
> (up to 10 inches) here on HN in my 16" MBP, 10 inches is ~230 characters
- chipotle_coyote 4y ago
  The context from the linked article, which dates to 2006: > Her results showed that passages formatted in the longest line length (95 characters per line or 10 inches) resulted in the fastest reading speed.